A purported "white‑hat" group announced the extraction of roughly 4,000 Bitcoin, worth about $319 million, from the Liquid Network, a Bitcoin sidechain operated by Blockstream. An OP_RETURN message on‑chain identified the actors as white‑hats and invited contact. The Liquid explorer showed the federation wallet balance fall from about 4,200 BTC to 207.275 BTC.
Blockstream responded by pausing the network’s bridge nodes and instructing exchanges to halt LBTC deposits and withdrawals while it investigates the incident. Liquid Network said the funds were moved via the SideSwap Peg‑out Authorization Key (PAK), but that the key itself was not compromised. The team later attributed the loss to a bug in the Elements software that created the L‑BTC in the transaction.
The hack raised questions about the sidechain’s multisig and whitelist security, as the withdrawal would normally require approval from 11 of 15 functionaries. Blockstream and its founder Adam Back have not commented publicly; CEO Samson Mow said the team is actively working on a resolution.
In parallel, US spot Bitcoin exchange‑traded funds (ETFs) posted their strongest three‑week inflow stretch of 2026. Net inflows reached $3.8 billion, driven by $986.9 million in the week ending Friday. Total assets under management rose to $101.3 billion, with cumulative net inflows of $55.6 billion. Thursday’s $730.9 million inflow was the largest since Jan. 14. Bitcoin traded just above $80,000 during the period.
Elsewhere in the crypto market, a consortium of 21 major financial institutions—including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citi, UBS, Santander, MUFG and Fidelity Investments—announced plans to form a company that will issue a U.S. dollar‑denominated stablecoin by the first half of 2027, with a euro‑denominated version slated as the next priority.
The G20 issued a joint statement endorsing crypto as a catalyst for broad‑based economic growth and called for responsible regulatory frameworks. Meanwhile, prediction‑market platform Kalshi banned former U.S. Representative George Santos for life after finding he used insider information to trade on event contracts.
Market data from CoinMarketCap showed Bitcoin up 2.6% at $80,234, Ethereum up 2.3% at $2,513 and XRP up 3% at $1.42, with the total cryptocurrency market cap at $2.72 trillion.
